Saturday, March 14, 2015

Iraqi Troops, Militias Pause in the Battle of Tikrit

Iran-led
coalition of Shia militias and Iraqi security forces battling the Islamic State
insurgents in Tikrit paused their offensive for a second day on Saturday as
they awaited reinforcements, Reuters
reported today.

Iraqi
military officials told Reuters that more “well-trained forces” were needed for
the street-by-street battles that recapturing the city would require.

“We do
not need a large number, just one or two thousand. We need professional
personnel and soldiers,” a military source in the operation command center said.
(Reuters, 14 March)

More than
20,000 Shia militia fighters and some 3,000 Iraqi soldiers entered Tikrit on
Wednesday. The source at the military command center told Reuters that they
have already retaken areas to the north and south in Iraq’s biggest offensive
against ISIL insurgents yet. ISIL fighters still hold half the city, including
central districts and a complex of palaces built by Saddam Hussein, and have
booby-trapped buildings and laid IEDs and roadside bombs.

In the environs of Tikrit, ISIL forces were fighting the PMF (Shia militias’ umbrella organization)
fighters and the Iraqi federal police forces near
Beiji oil refinery and towns north of al-Malha.

Meanwhile, the
Kurdish Peshmerga forces have also been attacking towns and villages south and
west of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, backed by sustained airstrikes from the
U.S.-led coalition, Reuters reported on Saturday. The Peshmerga offensive
appears to be aimed at dislodging ISIL from Kirkuk province rather than solely
creating a strategic depth to protect Kirkuk.

The
Pershmerga, backed by Iraqi federal police and PMF fighters, also engaged ISIL
at Hawija, an ISIL stronghold in southwestern Kirkuk, the Institute for the
Study of War (ISW) reported. This is the first time that Iraqi federal forces
have entered the province in coordination with Peshmerga forces, ISW said.

Photo
credit: PMF fighters launch a rocket during clashes with Islamic State
militants on the outskirts of Al-Alam; 8 March 2015 (Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters)

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